The state of the art market

Thanks to the emergence of the internet, the world has become a one giant city. That’s great in many regards - we can share ideas, technology, culture etc.. However, the art market - like other markets - has become extremely competitive and over-saturated. Arrival of new technologies has given rise to digital artists, further flooding the market. Due to this new avalanche of material, the prices have declined sharply. You can order an artwork for 5$ on Fiverr these days. In such an environment, it is very hard to stay competitive.

Print on demand services are not exactly helping the situation - these companies know the artists will keep producing new work regardless of whether they get paid or not - so the percentages from sales are very low (as low as 2.5%). A service like that might sell my print for 100$ of which I will only see a couple of dollars. The artists aren’t united and instead of tackling this problem we keep lowering our prices. The result is an unhealthy market.

Then we have the galleries - a place where artists should be able to sell their work and give 30% to 70% of the price tag back to the gallery. For the high commission these galleries ask of us they should be experts of the industry - they should know the demographics; they should be able to know the market; and they should be selling my work for a high profit margin. However, it seams most galleries treat artists not as clients but as cows to be milked. If we give them back 70% of our profits, they should treat us as valuable clients and not as an exploitable resource. They are mere middlemen.

The artists are left in a position where we can choose:

• either agree with such nonsensical terms

  OR

• study public relations, marketing, business development, SEO, web design and other fields in order to get ahead of the curve.

The hardest thing for an artist is to become recognized in order to sell their work (or simply sell their work). Art itself comes naturally. We are not businessmen and businesswomen - we are painters, designers, sculptors and performers. However, if the world is sucking us dry, we have no option but to adapt.

I encourage artists around the world towards learning the required skill sets for this brave new corporate world in orders to stay fully independent and get paid what we’re worth.

We have the imagination others don’t - let’s use it to turn the tables.

“Moon Colony” - Digital art created using artificial intelligence, 2020